It's probably a good idea to learn a bit about regular
expressions.
In short, PHP gives us two types of regular expressions
to play with, POSIX and PCRE. For more information :
PCRE : http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php
POSIX : http://php.net/manual/en/ref.regex.php
The following is an example rich tutorial :
http://www.phpbuilder.org/columns/dario19990616.php3
It uses ereg, which is POSIX :
ereg() : http://php.net/manual/en/function.ereg.php
Your question is "How can I make sure a string contains
ONLY alpha-numeric characters?" That could look like :
$string = 'examPle123';
if (eregi("^[a-z0-9]+$",$string)) {
echo 'String is alpha-numeric';
} else {
echo 'String is NOT alpha-numeric';
}
Which in english says :
if the string :
- begins with // ^
- contains one to an unlimited number of // +
- ends with // $
the following characters :
a-z // all lowercase letters
A-Z // comes from i in eregi (case insensitive)
0-9 // all numbers
then this is TRUE.
Let's say we wanted to make sure the length was between
3-11 characters, tinkering with the regex the following
works :
if (eregi("^[a-z0-9]{3,11}$",$string)) {
echo 'Is alpha-numeric and 3-11 characters in length';
} else {
echo 'Is NOT alpha-numeric and/or 3-11 characters in length';
}
Allowing spaces in $string is easy as : [a-z0-9 ]
Also, some good variable and string functions exist :
variables : http://php.net/manual/en/ref.var.php
strings : http://php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php
Regards,
Philip Olson
On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Brandon Orther wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am looking for a way to check a string if it has anything other than
> Numbers or Letters. Does anyone know how to do this?
> Thank you,
>
> --------------------------------------------
> Brandon Orther
> WebIntellects Design/Development Manager
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 800-994-6364
> www.webintellects.com
> --------------------------------------------
>
>
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